DANIEL KALU­UYA IS... W’KABI, CHIEF OF SE­CU­RITY

W’kabi one of T’challa’s old­est friends and he’s ba­si­cally the leader of the bor­der tribe. Every­thing is hid­den, they pro­tect what’s out, and look re­ally hum­ble, but un­der­neath, there’s a very — not sin­is­ter — but a much more mil­i­tary as­pect to them. It’s about pro­tect­ing the coun­try — they are the first port of call when you come into Wakanda.

From Skins to Get Out and Black Pan­ther — that’s a pretty mad jour­ney.

Yeah, it’s been pretty in­sane. It just keeps on grow­ing. I think it’s one of those things that prob­a­bly will re­ally set in, like, a year or two from now. When did you be­come in­volved in Black Pan­ther? Ryan Coogler saw a short film I did years ago called Baby. And then we Skyped dur­ing the sum­mer when I was in a play.

I had the mat­inée and then was like, “Wait, I have to Skype Ryan Coogler re­ally quickly. I’ll be back for the evening show!” I re­ally re­spect Ryan as a per­son, so I was like, “Cool, man. I’ll go to war with you, man.”